No Place Like London
by RainWillMakeTheFlowersGrow
Summary: With the financial aid of Marius, the Thénardiers travel to London, a gruesome place. But hey-questionable meat sources and piss in a bottle are right up their alley, right? Slightly AU: Madame survived.


**I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist.**

* * *

**P****ARIS, 1833**

Thénardier shook off his coat and pulled the quills out of his nose, carefully placing them in a case to be returned to the Changer later. His wife scowled at him. "Never mind that now, how much did we get?"

He grinned as he reached into his pocket and felt it lined with paper. "Well, it was a good trade for a scrap of cloth and a couple of newspaper articles, that's for certain."

She rolled her eyes. "Enough for us to leave the country?"

Her husband peered at the notes carefully through a pair of dark spectacles. He took his time before answering, "...yes."

"Good."

* * *

"Azelma?"

"Yes?"

"We're leaving for England in the morning."

"All right."

* * *

**LONDON, 1833**

The family stepped into the new world cautiously. A woman, a man, and a daughter clutching the trunk that held their few belongings.

"Well," said Madame, looking around distastefully at the gray, grim scenery, "it's better than Paris."

* * *

Monsieur was planning. They were staying at an inn for the night, and he was wearing a path in the floor as he paced pack and forth.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Names. Stories."

"Ah. Who are we, here?"

"I'm Irish, an immigrant. Danny O'Higgins. You're British. Eleanor Lovett. And so is Azelma, your daughter Caroline."

"What? We won't know what to say! We can't speak English well, you know that!"

"Learn," snapped Monsieur.

* * *

"There's a business for let on Fleet Street, Maman." Azelma returned from her scouting mission. Madame was pleased.

"There! That's what I'll do. I'll run a business."

"What business?"

"Oh, I don't know. Pies, I suppose. I was always good at those."

Monsieur snorted. "Right. What am I supposed to do, then?"

"I don't know. You may need to get a job, too, if we're going to support the four of us."

"The four of us?"

"Yes, of course. Azelma's with child. Or hadn't you noticed?"

Monsieur swore.

* * *

"Idiot girl! Whose is it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. How would I know?"

"You should've been more careful!"

"I tried! Wait...it was probably Montparnasse."

"Wonderful."

* * *

"These pies are terrible, Gulnare. Why do you get so much business?"

"Because," she replied, "they're better than everybody else's."

* * *

"We're interested in renting out the room above your shop, Mrs. Lovett."

Madame looked up to see a couple, the wife with a large belly, hovering in front of the counter. "Oh! Do come in. Ah, my daughter is expecting too."

The woman glowed. "It's magical, isn't it? To have a life growing inside of you?"

_Poor thing, must be her first child._ Aloud she said, "Of course. Here's the room. What do you think?"

The woman turned to her husband, who was smiling adoringly at her. "What do you think, Benjamin? Will it work for your barbering business?"

He glanced around. "Yes, I think it will." Madame noticed that he was rather...well, beautiful.

* * *

"Mr. Barker will never hire you, love! You look far too old, for one thing! Why do you want to learn barbering anyway?"

Monsieur squinted at himself in the mirror. "I'm not old, I'm twenty-five and the world has aged me." She rolled her eyes. "And I want to learn because we can't afford to start another inn, and no one in London has enough money to be a philanthropist, apparently! Mr. Barker doesn't make much, but it's more than nothing."

Madame sighed. She didn't understand her husband, she really didn't.

He was far too clever for her, really.

* * *

"Oh, Lucy, she's lovely!"

Lucy Barker smiled down at her newborn daughter. "Thank you, Azelma."

The two had become unlikely friends over the past months. Both had given birth, Lucy to a yellow-haired angel, Azelma to a black-haired one. Johanna, Lucy had called her baby, and Azelma, her father adamant that it remain British, had called hers Tobias.

"Lucy?" Madame called from the bottom of the stairs. "Judge Turpin's here to see you."

"Oh. Oh! Do tell him I'm not in, please, Nellie."

"All right..." said Madame dubiously.

* * *

Returning from shopping one day, Madame came home to a dark house and heard sobbing from upstairs.

She hurried up. "Whatever is the matter, Lucy?"

Lucy, curled up on a chair, looked at her with red eyes. "It's Benjamin. They've taken him. He's been sentenced to life..."

"What? No!"

Lucy nodded miserably.

* * *

"Maman! Have you seen Lucy?"

"Haven't you heard, Azelma?"

"No...heard what?"

"She went to a party last night at Judge Turpin's."

"...and?"

"He raped her."

Azelma gasped. "That's terrible! The poor thing!"

"Poor thing. Yes, I suppose," Madame said in a bored sort of way. She held a box of razors on her lap and was staring at them, mesmerized.

"But where is she now?"

"Mmm. Poisoned herself."

"_What?_"

"Arsenic. I tried to stop her."

"Oh, the poor thing!"

* * *

"Gulnare?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to leave, I think."

"Leave?"

"Yes, travel around the country, try to build a barbering name for myself."

Madame rolled her eyes. _Barbering. _She still didn't understand it. "All right then, but take Azelma and Tobias with you though, won't you? Azelma's looking sickly, and a change of air might do 'er some good." She hadn't noticed it, but Madame truly was starting to sound like a London native.

"I'll see you when I get back, I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose."

* * *

**LONDON, 1846**

"_At last, my right arm is complete again!"_

* * *

"Pirelli," she said, amused, staring at the barber. "And Toby. How curious. After all this time...piss in a bottle," she snorted. "An old trick."

"What was that, Mrs. Lovett?"

"I was only remarking on the terrible smell of that _elixir_, Mr. Todd."

* * *

She felt no guilt in baking her husband into a pie. It wasn't like she had ever been _so_ very fond of him.

And she had her grandchild with her now, as every woman longs to. It was easy to pretend she just wanted to take care of a poor boy who'd never been treated right.

Really, she thought, all was right with the world.

* * *

But of course it couldn't last.


End file.
